“Bad Hair” is Justin Simien’s sophomore effort, following the critically-acclaimed “Dear White People.” It also opened the midnight section at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. This blend of the socio-political and horror falls mostly flat in its attempt to both provoke and entertain. Set in 1989 L.A., the movie revolves around Anna (Elle Lorraine), working as an assistant on the music video show, “Culture.” She desperately wants a promotion, but sees her dreams evaporate when her boss leaves the company, replaced by Zora (Vanessa Williams, miscast), who wants to revamp the business by, gulp, adhering to white culture.
Much to her surprise, Zora does end up giving Anna the promotion that she always wanted, but under one condition: she has to replace her beautiful afro hair with a straight-haired weave. Bad idea. The weave turns out to have a mind of its own, attacking anyone who gets in Anna’s way. The satirical and poignantly topical first half of “Bad Hair” is much more successful than the second half; in fact, both feel like drastically different movies. In its second hour, things start to fall apart when Simien decides to inject slasher film tropes into his narrative, blurring the film’s message of black culture being “whitened” for mainstream purposes. Regardless, Lorraine, in her feature debut, shows signs of talent waiting to blossom. [C]
“Bad Hair” arrives on October 23 on Hulu